Chaos update from Red Garter Rob

Rob just called me from a payphone at the park. Chaos is down today. There are mechanics all over it and they're saying it will be down until further notice.....

I figured as much would happen. I've been seeing news updates about the Michigan's Adventure accident all morning, and I've only been up for 45 min. Too bad...
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Can anyone say, "I know the next ride to be leaving Cedar Point?"
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Next trip to CP on August 25th - 26th!

it was a given...

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http://www.msu.edu/~armbrus9/cp.html
mf laps = 100! No More No Less!!
Wheres the Electricity!

I don't think that Chaos is going to be leaving, but it will be checked over, again and again.

On a related note, I just saw a story on the "Local 4, WDIV" news. They were at Michigan's Adventure, and they interviewed a few people driving in. They all said "It seemed like a small accident" or "I bet that because of the accident, the saftey has been increased, and the rides have been checked over and over again" or something to that effect.

The reporters then said that the ride is covered with plywood and tarps, and that Michigan ride inspectors, and Cedar Fair's saftey inspectors are checking over the ride. They showed some shots of workers looking at the ride while they were talking. They also mentioned that the three Cedar Fair parks with Chaos Rides, Michigan's Adventure, Valleyfair in Minnesota, and Cedar Point in Ohio, have all shut their rides down just as a precaution.

I was surprised that they knew that Cedar Fair owned the park, and that they got the locations and names of all of the parks right. Not a typical characteristic of the media...

Kudos to channel 4.

On another note, although it was due to a tragedy, it was nice to see a few shots of the park. :)

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Joe - Drill Man, Elite Eight
Screw laps: 13 and counting...

*** This post was edited by Intamin2k on 7/31/2001. ***

Its funny becuase when I was in the park last night with Mindy we walked past Chaos and it was running.  I said to her on the way back I wanted to ride it.  When about a half hour later when we walked past it, they told everyone to get out of line and they closed the line and there were mainteance people all around it.
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daniel j. haverlock
'01 magnum: 519
"You wouldn't beleive me if I told you!"

While I certainly understand the need for safety, I can't help but feel that this may be a tad over-reacting, especially if the rides are removed or stay closed indefinately. If one Arrow coaster or Vekoma Boomerang has an accident, would you close all of them down? Certainly they would be inspected heavily, tested more thoroughly, and so forth, but perhaps closing them is a bit extreme. I do applaud CP for their safety-conscious habits, but I hope that the rides do reopen once they discover exactly what caused the accident and determine that (hopefully) it was limited to that one particular installation.

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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/

Well until you know what caused the accident, you do shut all of the installations of them down.  If there is a design or control system flaw in them, it might have been passed through to all of the other versions if it is a cloned ride.  And until the exact cause is determined, you don't want to take the chance of something happening to the same ride elsewhere.  Legally, that will crush you since the first thing  any lawyer would say is, "Why did you keep your ride open when there was just an accident on a very similar ride and the cause of that accident wasn't yet determined?"

When safety is an issue, there is nothing too extreme to do.  You have to look at it from the side that parks and designers realize they have people's lives in their hands.  If they care at all, they are never going to want to see anything like this happen on one of their rides.

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-Brian
I really should be working...

Oh, I agree absolutely that they should be closed until the cause of the accident is determined and the other installations are ruled out for a similar cause. Safety certainly is the biggest issue here, and oh boy I wouldn't want to see the lawsuit if a similar accident did occur. More clearly, I think it would be an overreaction to close/remove them all permanently due to an accident on one.

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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/

I agree....And when the cause is bearing failure (not usually visible unless disassembled) and shearing of the shaft holding the main unit - this is catastrophic failure in mechanical terms......So any precaution cannot be presumed to be unnecessary......
To be honest - this concerned me, I cant think of many times such a severe failure has occured on a ride. I am still trying to decide if this is possibly a design flaw or just an part failure. I guess such a failure could happen driving down the road in your car....But I wonder why it wouldnt give a warning of some sort - the ride not acting properly or a grinding noise - something, anything.....This is a serious matter in my opinion...I hope they find the cause.....
I am pretty sure if they cannot find a reasonable cuase, Chaos will be gone quickly and if it turns out to be something that cannot be detected easily with normal inspection....I think it will still be gone.....
Brian is right - they have lives at stake and have had mine and my kids at times, I expect them to do this...Lawyers - unless they can prove negligence or willful neglect, lawsuits are hard to win - but by ignoring something significant, its a slam dunk.....

*** This post was edited by Frontierman on 7/31/2001. ***

Just to let you know, I operated that very same ride at another CF park. From my experience, it almost never broke down, although maybe that's because we usually had only 6-12 riders per ride most of the time. Even the rats that lived in the pit did nothing wrong.

It could not be imbalance, because there were 25-30 riders on, and it holds up to 36. Any details what really caused it?

Regarding imbalance, wouldn't it matter where those 30 people were? I'd think that if the six empty seats were all in a row, it might have an effect. I'm not saying that's what happened, we don't know how the empty seats were positioned, but hey, everything ought to be looked at.

From the Amusement Park Accidents site:
Chaos rides throughout the country (not just other CF parks) are being closed, and Chance rides is contacting parks that own the ride to warn them of potential risks. Very good precautions, until the cause can be determined, which they say will be known by Wednesday.

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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/

*** This post was edited by CrystalKat on 7/31/2001. ***

I just caught the news, they said that the Chaos at Michigan's Adventure collapsed. It injured 26 people, within half an hour they shut down the other 2 chaos rides until they determine what caused it to collapse, and they can further look into it.
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Wildcat Crew 99
Blue Streak Crew 00
Raptor Crew 01
Just watch out for flying beer in the Garter

*** This post was edited by wildcatadam on 7/31/2001. ***

This was a catastrophic failure of one of Chance's older installations of the Chaos (1996), in a place never seen before. It doesn't help that it attracted national media coverage. Thus, until this oops is understood, and the Chaos is less so, they go DDM.

In regards to the boomerangs being shut down if one of them had a problem...this actually happened earlier this season. It was more like 3 boomerangs rolled back within a few days of each other. Several parks with boomerangs shut them down as a precaution.

Well, aparently the news didn't hit Wall Street until today, FUN has taken a big dip (about 4 1/2 % as of this post) today, down about 1 dollar.  I've never seen it move more than like 30 cents in a day.
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UCSigEp

Isn't Disney World a people trap run by a mouse?

MF 2K1: 4
MF life: 12

I too have worked a Chaos ride. Its the one that just opened in March at the Adventuredome. I know for a matter of fact if you dont balance it right it will stop and you will need to jog it down. As for closing them all, I feel for our local Chaos as it was just built at a cost of 600,000. The ride cost 300,000, but there was 300,000 bucks worth of construction to fit it inside the indoor park. Id hate to see them have to get rid of it!